Until December 2010 he was President of Virgin Galactic,[1] a company which plans to offer space tourism flights to the paying public.

[3] Whitehorn was born in Edinburgh, Scotland along with siblings Donald, Edward and Katherine.

[4] Whitehorn's early career was as a crewman on North Sea helicopters and also with the Thomas Cook travel agency.

In that role, where he was effectively the official spokesperson for the company, he was sometimes characterized as Branson's "right-hand man".

[citation needed] Since 2011 he has been a non-executive director of Stagecoach Group, where he was appointed Deputy Chairman in 2016, and he has the same roles at Good Energy.